The Director-General, National Automotive Council, Alhaji Aminu Jalal, said on Tuesday that the country spent about N1.2tn on the importation of various brands of vehicles last year. He said the vehicles ranged from fairly used cars, otherwise known as tokunbo, to brand new cars, excluding tractors and military vehicles. Jalal, who led an eight-member Board of the NAC to the Peugeot Automobile of Nigeria in Kaduna, noted that the vehicles were imported by the three tiers of government, private corporate organisations as well as individuals. Updated 5 Years ago

THE Director General of Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria, SMEDAN, Bature Masari, has said that Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises MSMEs contributes 46.54 percent to Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product, GDP. Masari made this disclosure during the post-humuos award to Late Maria Sokenu, former Managing Director of defunct Peoples Bank, who died alongside 116 others on board ill-fated Bellview Airline that crashed in Lisa, Ifo, Ogun State in 2005, by the Association of Professional Women Bankers (APWB) for her contribution to the association and the economy. Updated 5 Years ago

Forte Oil Plc, an operator of petrol stations in Nigeria, expects profit to triple next year as investments in electricity generation drive up revenue, reports Bloomberg. “Group net income will be up to N11 billion from a conservative net-profit estimate of N3.4 billion for 2013,” chief executive officer, Akin Akinfemiwa, said in Lagos. The power business will account for almost N5 billion of the 2014 total, he said. President Goodluck Jonathan handed control of 14 power plants to buyers including Forte Oil and Siemens AG in September to secure funding for the facilities and end frequent blackouts. Forte is also studying possible oilfield investments, as well as ownership of a refining and petrochemicals plant, to diversify in the energy industry and expand in West Africa. Updated 5 Years ago

The youngest insurance company in the country, FBN Life Assurance Limited (FBN Life), said it has sold over 100,000 credit life insurance covers in its three years of existence. The company said it would soon make a statement on its venture into general insurance business, recalled starting operation with only group life products and having introduced 6 individual life products and contracted 20 leading insurance brokers in the last three years. The Managing Director of the company, Mr. Val Ojumah, stated this at the media launch of some of its ‘Family Shield’ covers in Lagos recently. Updated 5 Years ago

The Director-General of the Budget Office , Bright Okogwu, on Tuesday said N300 billion has so far accrued to the Subsidy Re-investment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P). Okogwu made this known when he appeared before the Senate Ad-hoc Committee on SURE-P. He said the sum of N300 billion accrued to the SURE-P between Feb. 2012 and Sept. 2013 while the sum of N207 billion was disbursed within the same period, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports. Updated 5 Years ago

The World Bank has ranked Nigeria 147th among the best places for doing business. It also ranked the country as the 122nd for best countries to start a business. The report released, yesterday, said Nigeria’s low ranking is mainly caused by electricity problems, where the country is ranked 185th out of 189 countries evaluated. The first African country on the list is Rwanda, ranked 32nd. The report said in Africa, 66 per cent of countries enacted at least one reform last year, against 33 per cent in 2005, adding that nine African countries make up the top 20 most improved in terms of business regulations since 2009: Benin, Burundi, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and Togo. Updated 5 Years ago

There is pervading anxiety in the camp of Chevron Nigeria Limited over the ability of Brittania-U to pay up on its bid for three of the multinational’s oil blocs. Brittania-U had put up and won a $1.2 billion bid for the blocs, but BusinessDay learnt that the oil giant has already put reserve bidder, Seplat Petroleum, on notice for possible preliminary meeting in London to discuss its bids in the event that Brittania-U fails to stump up the cash. There are also indications that industry watchers are concerned about the expiration of the licences of the oil fields put up for sale by Chevron Nigeria since there was no disclosure on that. Updated 5 Years ago

At a time when deep and liquid local currency bond markets (LCBMs) are widely recognised as playing important roles in promoting the effectiveness of macroeconomic policies, Nigeria’s subnational bond market yield performance has outclassed South Africa’s and the rest of the continent’s in terms of yield, said the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in its recent World Economic and Financial Survey. The IMF said Nigeria’s subnational bond market has become the largest in Africa with $2.8 billion in outstanding domestic debt, compared with $1.6 billion in South Africa. Updated 5 Years ago

Weekly transactions on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) opened on a bearish note on Monday with the market capitalisation dropping by N59 billion due to price losses. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the market capitalisation declined by 0.49 per cent to close at N11.910 trillion against the N11.969 trillion achieved on Friday. Similarly, the NSE All-Share Index, which opened at 37,461.94, lost 183.7 basis points or 0.49 per cent to close at 37,278.34. Updated 5 Years ago

Wealth creation in Asia is driving growing demand for newly-built luxury homes globally, with the small island-nation of Singapore taking second place to China on a list of most important buyers, real-estate consultancy Knight Frank said. Singaporean buyers of newly-built luxury homes abroad pick London as their top destination, followed by Malaysia and Tokyo, spending on average around $2.3 million for their properties, the report said, based on sales data and a survey of residential development teams globally. Updated 5 Years ago